Happythankyoumoreplease

Life always seems so relatively easy for attractive 20 & 30 year olds living in Manhattan and juggling love and friendship as they finally grow up.  Sam, an aspiring writer, is on his way to an important meeting with an Editor when he becomes the temporary caretaker of a young African/American boy who has been separated from his foster mother in the subway.  The fact that he bonds with the child and hangs on to him for few days without any real legal repercussions sort of stretches the plausibility of the story  …..whilst at the same time he is pursuing Mississippi an attractive waitress intent on pursuing a singing career.

Sam’s best friend Annie  is bald and very self-conscious and dates losers to compensate, and then there are his pals Charlotte and Charlie…. she’s an artist and he’s a budding filmmaker, and they cannot decide whether to split up or get married.

It’s a surprisingly engaging wee indie movie that tackles a topic that we would expect from a major film studio, and it does it well, and with style.  The humor from the drama is in it’s script peppered with some witty one liners ….’she was totally unburdened with any talent’ and ‘the trouble with optimism is that it is f..king exhausting’.  And its well served with a fine cast …… Michael Algeri, without a single hint of being the usual precocious child-actor was enchanting as the kid, and I really liked Tony Hale who was simple brilliant in the tough role of being the dorky guy who had to convince Annie that she would fall in love with. 

This is the first movie written and directed by Josh Radnor who I didn’t know is the star of the hit TV series ‘How I Met your Mother’ , but that’s what you miss when you don’t ever watch TV.  He also starred in the movie  too, making this  feature film a remarkably warm and enjoyable unpretentious successful debut. And he ensured that all the plot story lines have credible happy endings, which is quite refreshing these days.

On one hand it won the Audience Favorite Award at Sundance which is no mean feat, whilst at the same time it collected a couple of quite hard-hitting reviews including one from the Critic of The NY Times who  dismissed the whole thing as  ‘insufferably’.  I’m firmly with the Sundance crowd on this one …. it’s totally charming ….. and Mr Radnor is a very promising talent that I hope we see more off. 

★★★★★★★
Click for Trailer